


Refracted

by Siavahda



Category: Alice in Wonderland (2010), Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, Palimpsest - Catherynne M. Valente, Splintered - A. G. Howard
Genre: Ableist Language, Alternate Universe - Alice in Wonderland, F/F, M/M, Magnus is a man of many hats, Matriarchal society, Multi, Name Changes, Polyamory, Pretty boys in corsets, Runed AU, Seri is Eris is Sebastian, Underland is Faerieland, Victorian Attitudes, We're All Mad Here, listed fandoms are really just influences
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 19:22:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5217752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siavahda/pseuds/Siavahda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Command, and chaos will answer, opal, roseling, phoenix-chick. We’ll make your dreams come true, if you’ll only come and <b>dream</b> for us.”</i>
</p><p>Engaged to be married to the inestimable Clarissa Fairchild, Simon Lewisham discovers fate has other plans for him when an impossible stranger approaches him at his engagement party. A whole nother world is waiting for him at the bottom of the rabbit hole - and it’s been waiting for a long, <i>long</i> time. </p><p>An Alice in Wonderland!AU of my Runed verse. Simon is Alice, Jace is a White Knight, Magnus is the Mad Hatter, and Clary is awesome. Let the madness begin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Refracted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WaifsandStrays](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaifsandStrays/gifts).



> This was inspired by a question of the amazing futuristicnightcreator over on tumblr, asking who the Runed characters would be in an Alice in Wonderland AU. THIS HAPPENED. So this fic is dedicated to them, and I hope they (and everyone else!) enjoys this ridiculous thing!

Simon Lewisham took the deepest breath his corset would allow him and tried to focus on the view from the window. It was a most lovely view—hints of the approaching summer had begun to emboss the world in richer colours, and the Fairchild estate was no exception. Ancient oaks lined the smooth road that led up to the house, branches meeting above the passing carriage to form a tunnel of leaf-filtered sunlight, gilding everything in green and gold. Simon supposed the Fairchilds must have a great deal of wildlife about, so far from London; in fact for a moment he thought he glimpsed a large animal in the trees. But no, it must be his imagination weaving strangeness from shadows again—the creature had looked distinctly feline, and who ever heard of a cat the size of a tiger roaming wild in England, of all places?

“Simon, are you attending?” his guardian asked sharply, and Simon swallowed a sigh.

“Yes, Aunt Genevieve.”

She bestowed upon him a narrow-eyed look, which he did his best to meet with an innocent mien. Aunt Genevieve was a fierce, handsome womon, who could easily have had  three or four husbands had she wanted them; born of an Indian womon and her English husbands, she had lustrous dark hair cut short about her shoulders in the modern style, smooth golden-brown skin, and grey eyes that could cut like swords when she wanted them to. Like Simon, she was dressed in her best for this party; a sleek black pants-suit, with an emerald-green vest and tie, and a small corsage of violets at her buttonhole. Her top hat rested on the seat beside her. “I don’t want any of your imaginings and dreamings today, Simon,” she said, and he tried not to start guiltily at the reminder of the non-existent big cat. “This is a great opportunity for you, quite probably the greatest you will ever have. You must _pay attention_ to this party.”

 “Yes, Aunt Genevieve,” Simon repeated, knowing it was what she wanted to hear. It would do no good to explain, yet again, that he didn’t _want_ to get married. Becoming first husband to someone like Clarissa Fairchild really _was_ an incredible opportunity, a completely unexpected one—and yet when the edict formally announcing Clarissa’s suit had arrived at the Lewisham household a few weeks ago, Simon’s first reaction had been one of horror, not delight. To leave his garden, his library, his aunt’s two Irish Wolfhounds, leave _London_ for some cold country manor—! And not even some newer, more modern family, but the Fairchilds—they were as old as blood could get, with all the old guard’s values! None of the Fairchild boys had been at school with him, or sent to any school at all, that he’d heard—and on the rare occasions he saw any of them in public they were always corseted, as pliant and soft-spoken as a matron’s wet dream.

Which begged the question; why did Clarissa want _him_ , who was none of those things, who wore a corset so rarely he hardly had a waist at all? Simon Lewisham, who was always supposing things, and dreaming things, and could never keep his mouth shut when he ought? He was bookish and outspoken and terrible in social situations, and she wanted to _marry_ him? _Why?_

Perhaps it was all that old blood, he thought with a wry grin. Inbreeding. Perhaps Clarissa was actually mad. It was the only thing that made sense of the whole affair. Or perhaps…he faltered as it occurred to him that this might be nothing more than an elaborate joke. A cruel one, given that most young men would be devastated to be toyed with so, and Clarissa had never seemed cruel. She had seemed nice enough, in fact, when Simon and a handful of the other boys from Kingston Prep had been allowed to attend select lectures at the womyn’s-only London University with her class. She had helped him with his notes…

The coachwomon tapped on the roof, and Genevieve plucked up her hat as the carriage curved sedately around the fountain in front of the house. Simon peeked through the window at it, even though he should have been looking the other way, towards the manor and whoever might be waiting to greet them—

“Oh,” he said softly, delighted; at the fountain’s centre were gathered five merwomyn cast beautifully in bronze, their curling tails the blue-green of verdigris and their skin almost exactly the same shade as Genevieve’s. What a clever way of using the bronze’s patina! And on the tier below—but there his brief moment of whimsical pleasure was undone, for in the lower tier of the fountain were six or seven mer _men_ , and unlike their sisters who sat proud and tall in their unabashed nakedness, the mermales were modestly submerged, only their heads and shoulders, and the fins of their tails, visible above the churning water. The only one not hidden so had been garbed in a corset of seaweed and shells where he clutched the rim of the merwomyn’s level, a look of adoration on his face as he looked up at his mistress. He, and all the other mermen with him, bore golden collars around their necks like dogs…

“Simon!”

Simon whipped around guiltily. His aunt was frowning thunderously at him.

“I told you,” she began, and he nodded quickly.

“I’m sorry, it was just—the fountain…”

Her eyebrows were dark thunderbolts, but the coach was drawing up to the front steps of the house, and the chastisement Simon deserved had to be put aside. “Let me look at you—yes—oh, where has your choker got to!”

Simon produced it from behind one of the cushions and submitted quietly to her ministrations. Only the most traditional and hidebound titled families insisted on collars anymore, but chokers were as mandatory an accessory for respectable men as a top hat for the well-dressed womon. This one was the finest Simon had ever owned, a delicate weaving of silver roses studded with pearls that nonetheless locked around his throat like armour, or a cage.

He wondered which it was meant to be; protection, or imprisonment.

“Lovely,” his aunt said, leaning back against her seat as the carriage drew to a halt. “You look beautiful, darling.”

Simon tried to smile.

And then the coachwomon was opening the door, dipping her head to Genevieve, who in turn offered her hand to help Simon down. He needed it; perhaps it was easier for those young men used to it, but the aquamarine blue corset with its neat silver buckles felt as though it was crushing his ribcage. Aunt Genevieve had told him over and over to wear his training corsets, and look what his forgetting had cost him; now he was so unused to the pressure he could hardly breathe…

Or perhaps that was just a natural side-effect to being faced with the Fairchild matriarch. Layde Fairchild was, as he had woefully expected, even more imposing than Aunt Genevieve. A womon in her fifties, she was tall and elegant, her still honey-coloured hair swept up into a chignon and adorned with a single diamond pin. The vest beneath the jacket of her suit was a daring gold silk, with bronze embroidery that reminded Simon of the Fairchild fountain.

“Mre.[1] Lewisham,” she said warmly, descending the steps to greet them. “And this must be the man of the hour.”

A flush rose up Simon’s cheeks and down his throat. Under the gaze of Layde Fairchild Simon suddenly felt very grubby indeed, never mind the new choker, or the beautiful waistcoat-corset with its embroidered sapphire roses. His shirt, a darker blue chosen by Genevieve to make his corset and choker blaze in contrast, was nowhere near fine enough to satisfy this woman. And he was wearing plain black trousers, when a womon like this probably insisted that all her men wore corset pants or trouser skirts—

“My nephew, Msr[2]. Simon Lewisham,” Genevieve said.

Reminding himself that he didn’t _want_ to marry this womon’s daughter, and that her calling off the wedding would be a good thing, Simon held out his hand. His almost mother-in-law bent over it to kiss the air above his gloved knuckles. “Welcome to the family home, Simon.”

Simon made himself smile. “The grounds looked lovely as we drove up,” he offered. That was suitably bland, wasn’t it?

Apparently so, for Layde Fairchild smiled as she straightened. “My second husband’s pride and joy. You’ll meet him shortly; he’s hovering around my daughter at the moment. She was his first-sired,” she explained to Genevieve. “He’s quite overwhelmed by the engagement. You know what men are like.”

Genevieve smiled and nodded, murmuring that she most certainly did know.

“But come in,” Layde Fairchild said, beckoning them inside. “Everyone’s through here in the garden…”

“Do you have many children?” Genevieve asked as they were shown through the house, precisely as if she had not spent the past week grilling Simon on the Fairchild pedigree. Happily, this was one of those times when Simon was not expected to speak, and he was free to look about them at this place where he was soon to abide. But although he had come prepared, even _expecting_ , to dislike all he saw, the Fairchild home was not as bad as he’d feared. If it was barely third-cousins-twice-removed to the comfortable London townhouse where he’d spent the last seventeen years, it was not the bleak fortress of his nightmares. Even in the middle of the day most of the rooms Layde Fairchild led them through were quite dark, without electric lights, and darkened further by rich colours and heavy furniture. But they were good colours, and the furnishings were well made and beautiful, if in an older, somewhat more imperious style than he was used to. Instead of the plethora of family portraits he’d expected, the paintings and artwork skilfully arranged in each room were all quite beautiful, if a little dull in subject matter; landscapes and scenes from Greek myth and the like.

It was different, but not altogether terrible.

Or so he thought, until they reached the garden.

Given that the Fairchild manor was open on all sides to acres of land, what was called the ‘garden’ was really just the area at the back of the house, its airily defined borders ephemeral at the best of times. But now it seemed as if the entire estate had been crammed full with every noble Layde in England, and each one had brought her husbands with her. It was a veritable sea of people that turned towards the new arrivals, and Simon froze beneath the inspection, horrified by the sheer size of the crowd.

“Allow me to introduce you around,” Layde Fairchild said, reaching for his arm.

 _Do I have a choice?_ Simon thought tartly. But he managed to swallow the retort, covering it with another doll-like smile. “It would be my pleasure,” he lied, and placed his hand on her proffered sleeve.

There followed one of the most excruciating hours of his life. Everyone wanted to meet the young man who had caught a Fairchild’s eye, and it was swiftly made clear to Simon that everyone else was just as confused as to how he’d done it as he himself was. Again and again, there was that flicker of amusement or contempt as he was introduced to yet another titled Layde, the swiftly stifled raised eyebrow, the sharp quirk of a lip. No one dared to be properly cutting with Layde Fairchild escorting him, but as minute stretched into taffy-like minute Simon’s smile became more difficult to keep up, the struggle very like, he imagined, as if one were trying to keep hold of a burning coal. The plain modern trousers had most certainly been a mistake—not a one of the male attendees was wearing anything but the most sumptuous corset pants, laced up the sides in any one of a dozen elaborate formal patterns; checkerboard, lattice, bi-colour, ladder. At least he wasn’t the only one wearing a choker—although most of the other men were in collars…

His hopes that Clarissa wouldn’t require him to wear a collar when they married were falling rapidly.

If his trousers had been the only thing setting him apart from his peers, then perhaps it would have been all right. But the young men of Clarissa’s set were, to a one, exquisite as finely-cut gems; beautiful as Grecian statues, their slender waists were embraced by richly-coloured silk corsets above neat, narrow hips. Jewels sparkled like champagne at their throats and wrists, and their tongues were gilded, ever-ready with some charming quip or gentle witticism. When they laughed in their little knots of two or three, they sounded like songbirds.

And unlike the womyn, the men were kind. Their smiles, when Simon was introduced, seemed genuine, and their voices lacked the edge of mockery or disbelief that seemed sharp as glass in their wives and sisters. If they were horrified by Simon’s trousers, Simon certainly couldn’t tell.

“Why are you all being so nice?” he blurted, sometime later. Layde Fairchild had disappeared, leaving him in the capable gloved hands of Clarissa’s sire, a kindly raven-haired man in his early thirties. He must have been younger than Simon when he married Layde Fairchild, to have an eighteen-year-old daughter. “When I am—I am clearly not—”

“My dear,” Mx-dx.[3] Fairchild said firmly, cutting Simon off, “take a walk with me.”

Bemused, Simon linked arms with Clarissa’s sire and let himself be led away from the party. He tried not to feel anxious. He hadn’t even seen Clarissa yet—was she here? Aunt Genevieve had said engagement parties were intended to allow a womon’s parents and other husbands, if she had any, to meet and pass judgement on her fiancé, and he shouldn’t expect to spend much time with Clarissa today—but still, she should at least be present, shouldn’t she?

“My aunt says that engagement parties were invented to give the bride’s parents and other husbands the opportunity to appraise her fiancé,” Simon found himself saying as the sounds of the party faded behind them. They were now walking on a gravel path between stately flowerbeds, and Simon would have dearly hoped for Mx-dx. Fairchild to have nothing more in mind than a relaxing discourse on gardening—hadn’t Layde Fairchild said Clarissa’s sire was in charge of the estate’s gardens?—if he’d had any faith in the angels’ grace today.

Also, he couldn’t quite believe he’d actually spoken aloud just then.

But to his relief, Mx-dx. Fairchild chuckled. “Just so. You may count yourself fortunate; when my Layde Fairchild chose me, I had Mx-un.[4] Fairchild to contend with. He was not at all convinced I was worthy of his layde wife.”

“Oh dear,” Simon said, quite lamely.

“It turned out quite well in the end,” Mx-dx. Fairchild said cheerfully. He seemed far more relaxed in this setting, surrounded by elegant topiary and gleaming white roses, and Simon began to hope that this was not to be an inquisition after all.

“I’m glad to hear that,” he offered.

Mx-dx. Fairchild smiled at him. “Quite so. But you’ll be Clarissa’s first husband, of course; it will be _your_ approval some poor young thing will be striving to earn in a few years! Which is what I hoped to discuss with you.”

Simon didn’t quite follow. “I beg your pardon; you want to discuss Clarissa’s second husband with me?” Did the Fairchilds already have a second husband picked out for their daughter? That would be most convenient, actually. One of the things that had most distressed him about his upcoming nuptials was that the Fairchild sons had all been married off, which would leave him the only male his age in his wife’s household. But if Clarissa were to take a second husband—well, at worst it would mean having a peer, and perhaps they could even be friends…

Of course, if Clarissa’s second husband were a member of her own set, he probably wouldn’t have much in common with an untitled bookworm like Simon…

Mx-dx. Fairchild laughed. “No, my dear, I want to discuss _husbanding_ with you.” His smile was warm, assuring Simon that his amusement had not been of the cruel sort. “Am I correct in supposing that you have no male relatives?”

Simon swallowed. “I—I’m afraid that is so, Mx-dx. Fairchild,” he stammered. “My mother and her husbands died in a boating accident when I was a baby. The sister of my par[5] took me in, my aunt Genevieve. And she’s, well—” He flushed, not sure how to say what he had to say delicately.

Mx-dx. Fairchild took pity on him. “I noticed that she wore violets,” he said kindly.[6]

Simon nodded gratefully.

“But you see now why we must speak,” Clarissa’s sire said. “You have had no masculine influences all your life. I’m sure this must have been a cause for concern for you when my daughter proposed.”

Technically Clarissa _hadn’t_ proposed yet; that would happen today, after her family had had a chance to approve or disapprove of her choice. But Simon didn’t contradict him. “Yes, of course.”

“You have had no sire to instruct you in a husband’s duties,” Mx-dx. Fairchild went on. “But I wished to tell you that this need provide no difficulty. I had a thought that you might wish to spend a week or two with Mx-trs.[7] Fairchild and myself before the wedding—perhaps in Paris?”

Simon nearly stumbled on the gravel. _“Paris,_ Mx-dx. Fairchild?” Simon had never dreamed—well, no, that was a falsehood, he had _dreamed_ of travelling the entire globe, but he had never once expected his fantasies to become reality!

“Would that suit? My layde wife has a splendid townhouse there—much more modern than this old place,” he said with a wink, gesturing back towards the manor. “I think you would enjoy it.”

“I’m sure I would! I—thank you so, sir!” Paris! The city of lights and poetry! If he’d been a different sort of man, Simon would have swooned. At least until a splash of sense occurred to him. Much more hesitantly, he asked, “Would Clarissa and your layde wife accompany us?” For that would take a great deal of joy out of the holiday, if he must always be the perfect gentleman, when he did not truly know what that entailed—

But Mx-dx. Fairchild shook his head. “Certainly not! It would not be at all appropriate for you and Clarissa to go abroad together before you are properly wed. But in the company of myself and Mx-trs. Fairchild, a pair of respectable married men, practically your sires-in-law—well, that is another thing entirely. No one would think twice about it.”

He sounded approving, as if he thought Simon had been respectably and responsibly nervous for his reputation in the event of holidaying with his fiancée. That was well with Simon. The longer he could pretend to be an ideal young man, the better for everyone, surely. He might as well give up on any thought of getting out of the situation; if Mx-dx. and Mx-trs. Fairchild had concocted this plan of Paris between them, then Layde Fairchild was certainly not about to call the wedding off. Clearly they were invested in this marriage, for whatever inscrutable reason.

Was it possible that Clarissa truly cared for him? That might sway a respectable family, if they cared for their daughter very much; might cause them to overlook her chosen’s lack of a title and proper social graces. Perhaps.

It seemed very unlikely.

“We would be able to instruct you in privacy there,” Mx-dx. Fairchild was saying, and Simon breathed in the scent of roses and told himself this was far better a situation than he had feared. “In the running of a noble household, for one, although of course that will take longer than a few weeks to master… But rest assured, Clarissa and yourself will reside at the manor with us for some years yet, I think; at least until she has finished university and passed the bar. You will have plenty of time to learn such things.”

Simon was torn between being relieved that he would not be expected to run a household just yet, and horrified by the thought of living in the same house as the intimidating Layde Fairchild.

“But there are other skills a wife will expect of her husband,” Mx-dx. Fairchild continued, somewhat pointedly. “Even an inexperienced one.” He rose his eyebrows at Simon questioningly. “You _are_ inexperienced, are you not?”

When he understood what Mx-dx. Fairchild was asking, Simon flushed scarlet, mortified and obscurely furious. He could not seem to find his tongue to give the older man an answer.

“Sir, your insinuation—” he began once he’d found it, trying to strike the right balance of insulted while resisting the urge to slap the man soundly.

“Pax, my dear,” Mx-dx. Fairchild said soothingly, raising a hand to calm him. “It must be asked. It would not be the first time a womon had taken advantage of a young man meant to be her charge—you yourself have said there is no blood between you and your aunt—” Now Simon was insulted on Genevieve’s behalf! “—and one hears stories, you know, of the mischief boys get up to at these new male-only academies—visiting foreign womyn, falling prey to unsavoury professors…”

Simon held his tongue as they passed by a pond where small brass frogs rested between blooming lily-pads. A flash of dark orange in the water suggested the presence of fish.

“I have never been—intimate—with a womon in my life,” he said finally, striving to put his anger aside. Even if it felt quite righteous, it would only do him harm to air it. “And I would thank you not to imply otherwise. Especially not at the cost of my aunt’s honour.”

To his surprise, Mx-dx. Fairchild smiled as if pleased. “Well said. My apologies, Msr. Lewisham. I asked only for my daughter’s sake, you understand.”

Simon supposed that he did. One heard horrible rumours of diseases spread by intimacy, even in a boys’ school, and he could understand a sire’s desire to keep safe his daughter. But still, to infer that Simon had been loose with his— _affections_ —!

“As I was saying,” Mx-dx. Fairchild continued, “a wife has certain expectations of a husband. Womyn, my dear, have great—let us call them _appetites_ —and it is a husband’s task to satisfy them.” He gave Simon a sympathetic look and patted his hand. “It is hard for a husband alone to fill all of his wife’s needs, but you may console yourself with the surety that Clarissa will take a second husband before too long.”

“Ah…yes,” Simon said. “I will be grateful for the…” Assistance? “…company.” He tried not to make it a question.

“Indeed. But until then, the onus of keeping her satisfied will rest on your shoulders.” He patted Simon’s arm. “Now of course, being a good, chaste young gentleman, you have little idea of how to do that. And that is where myself and Mx-trs. Fairchild come in.”

Simon was briefly assailed by the mental picture of being taken to a French den of iniquity by his sires-in-law. Not that he really had any idea of what a den of iniquity would look like—presumably it was a place for low womyn to meet unchaste men for illicit…shenanigans.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Mx-dx. Fairchild,” he said.

The man’s eyebrows rose, two twin strokes of calligraphy above ocean-blue eyes. “My dear child, do you think no one in the history of the world foresaw the difficulty of marrying innocent gentlemen like your young self to womyn, with all their raging appetites? How are you to learn how to please your wife, if you must keep yourself chaste for marriage?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Simon said, growing more confused by the moment.

“But that is what I am telling you, my boy; _I_ shall teach you. Myself, and Mx-trs. Fairchild. It is our happy duty. That is why we will go to Paris, where we may have some privacy from the respective womyn in our lives to instruct you.”

Simon could hardly believe what he was hearing. Jumbled images of Classical statues flew through his mind, naked male bodies entwined, and a ball of knotted heat twisted in the pit of his stomach, glittering like electricity. But no, of course that was purest fantasy—Mx-dx. Fairchild must intend something far less improper; woodcuts and instructional pamphlets, perhaps, and lectures, very dry, dull lectures—

All such thoughts ignited and fell to ash as Mx-dx. Fairchild drew them to a halt amidst the flowers and raised his hand to Simon’s cheek. The brush of his silken glove was an epiphany that set Simon’s skin to singing; he inhaled sharply, his mouth suddenly very dry as Mx-dx. Fairchild gently tipped Simon’s face up towards his own.

“Had the course of things gone differently, it would be the province of Clarissa’s other husbands to see you so educated,” he murmured, and his voice had taken on the qualities of warm honey, sweet and rich and melting. Simon nearly shivered at the sound. “I find myself most glad it is not so. It will be my pleasure to teach you, Simon.”

Simon swallowed hard. Mx-dx. Fairchild’s breath brushed his lips like silk, scattering his thoughts like leaves before a breeze. Was the man about to kiss him? Should Simon let him? Did he _want_ to be kissed? He was not entirely sure; he _was_ certain this was not—was hardly—proper…

“Ahem.”

Startled as if slapped, Simon flinched away from Mx-dx. Fairchild’s touch, whirling with cheeks aflame—and found himself facing the most extraordinary character he had ever seen. He stared most rudely, distantly aware of his unacceptable behaviour but unable to stop himself, he was so taken aback.

Leaning against one of the rose arches was a young man not much older than himself—but what a strange figure he cut! Below a shock of wild, star-white hair, he had a face quite feral in its angles and planes, as exquisite and dangerous as one of the ancient knives in the Fairchild art collection. And his clothes! The colours! His halter-necked bodice clung positively indecently to a sculpted chest, a glimmer of blues and purples that left his arms—and hands!—bare as a dockworker’s, narrowing to a sharp point below his navel, baring sinful crescents of his waist and hipbones. And below those hips… His trousers—Simon’s heart stopped dead to see them; they were made of some sheer fabric, dark but undeniably transparent. Ribbons of blue velvet hid what needed hiding and spiralled in haphazard fashion down his legs, but between their coils so much was clearly, appallingly visible.

He was a wild thing where only tame things should be, a tiger at a tea party, and Simon couldn’t take his eyes away.

“Yes?” Mx-dx. Fairchild said warily. “And who might you be, young man?”

The creature—no, why had that word sprung to Simon’s mind?—the stranger grinned wide, and for a moment Simon fancied that he had a mouthful of sharp ivory points, like the stuffed sharks at the Natural History Museum. “My name is _Seri,”_ he said. “E-R-I-S, mad and bad and _total_ trouble; keeper of golden apples, kicker of dominoes, and professional wedding-ruiner, at your service.” He swept a grandly formal bow, and Simon blinked at the after-image that followed the motion, a shimmer of rainbow colours. “Except not really, of course.”

Mx-dx. Fairchild blinked in astonishment. “I beg your pardon?”

The world seemed to waver, colours smearing like wet paint; there was a blur of silver hair and violet-blue, and then the stranger was standing nose-to-nose with Mx-dx. Fairchild though he could not possibly have moved so quickly, could not have crossed the distance between them in such a blink of time—

“Beg all you like,” Seri sing-songed. “I’m _not_ at your service, and you can’t have my pardon.” Up close his eyes were the startling green of absinthe— _wholly_ green, with no white sclera and a razor-thin slash of pupil hanging suspended like a jet splinter in poison. A cat’s eyes, if any cat had eyes of broken glass and emerald fire, ashine with chaotic glitter that snatched Simon’s breath from his throat, drew him as impossibly, as devastatingly as a moth to an open flame— “So _shoo_ , little man, blinkered man, pretty bird in a pretty cage. I’m not your key today.”

Simon fully expected his near-sire-in-law to protest, but to his surprise Mx-dx. Fairchild nodded jerkily, like a marionette with stiff strings. “I—yes, of course,” he said slowly, thickly. His pupils, Simon noticed belatedly, had grown very wide, almost eclipsing the warm brown of his irises. “I’ll just…go and check on the party, shall I…?”

“Mx-dx. Fairchild?” Simon asked uncertainly, but the man didn’t seem to hear him. Nodding and murmuring to himself, and apparently having forgotten Simon’s existence entirely, Clarissa’s sire turned on his heel and walked back the way they had come through the roses, weaving and stumbling slightly like a man drunk.

Simon whirled on the stranger. “What did you do to him!”

Seri looked amused, and Simon swallowed hard, abruptly aware that he ought to be running after Mx-dx. Fairchild—or simply _running_ , running anywhere, so long as his feet took him away from that knife-sharp mouth and those poison-green eyes.

 _But if I’m the one he wants…_ He remembered how quickly Seri had moved. _He would only catch me if I ran._

The thought skittered a shiver down his spine, a thrill like the illicit sip he had stolen of his aunt’s whiskey, one evening when she had neglected to lock the alcohol cabinet behind her. Beneath Seri’s liqueur-green gaze, he found himself wondering how the taste of absinthe would compare.

“I sent him away so we could play,” Seri said, sang, rhyming, St. Elmo’s fire burning behind his stained-glass eyes. “Play with me, Simon, play with me and come and see, we’ll drink iced tea beside the sea, and you’ll be _free_ …”

“Excuse me?” How did he know Simon’s name? No, wait, of course if he was a guest he would know the name of Clarissa’s fiancé—if such a strange creature could possibly be a guest…

Seri shrugged, grinning. “I like rhymes,” he confessed, lightly, casually, and laughed as Simon stared. “Things make more sense when they rhyme, don’t you find? But.” Without warning, quick as quicksilver, he snatched at Simon’s wrist. The heat of his ungloved fingers was a shock, lemon and sugar, tart and sweet. “No, precious thing, you’re not excused, no excuses for you. _It’s time to come home.”_

“I beg your pardon,” Simon said, alarmed now (why only now, and why was it so hard to cling to a modicum of good sense, why did it light him up like Solstice morn to hear this creature call him _precious thing_?) “I really don’t think—”

Seri shivered, and Simon forgot what he’d been about to say, fascinated by the way the other man’s strange pupils dilated, opening like flowers. “Oooh, do that again, do,” Seri said hoarsely, his voice suddenly rasping like satin. _“You_ can have it, apple blossom, you can have all the pardons you want—” He raised Simon’s hand between them, and lowered his head, and Simon’s protests dissolved like wine in water as those sharp, deadly teeth—he hadn’t imagined it, they _were_ a shark’s teeth—nipped gently at the finger of his glove. “—if you beg so prettily.”

He should run. He should flee this creature and the madness he wore like a sailor’s tattoos on his skin. It was the only sensible thing to do. A part of Simon could hardly believe he had not done so already, could not understand why he was still standing here, his pulse throbbing in his fingers as Seri’s monstrous teeth tugged so carefully, so insistently, at his glove. He was not—he should not—but Seri blazed, an oil painting in a world of chalk, and the whisper of the glove against his palm as it slid free, the sudden cool of the air against his hand, the spiced warmth of Seri’s breath twining like ribbons and rings around his fingers—

“You don’t have to beg, though,” Seri whispered, and his lips grazed Simon’s fingertips, velvet-soft, and the touch was embers and rose thorns, dark chocolate and cinnamon, _absinthe_. “Command, and chaos will answer, opal, roseling, phoenix-chick. We’ll make your dreams come true, if you’ll only come and _dream_ for us.”

“Dream…?” Simon asked, breathless. He didn’t understand anything, couldn’t follow, could not spin sense from Seri’s bizarre endearments. Perhaps the man was an escapee from some local asylum, or a travelling freak show—that might explain the costume, the teeth, the mesmerising eyes. But Simon could not make himself care, no matter how he should… What ghost of desire Mx-dx. Fairchild had elicited in him was nothing to the fire this creature lit of his bones, flames that licked the underside of his skin and burned his blood like oil. Seri’s touch birthed a fierce, greedy demand for _more_ in Simon’s chest, for _more_ and _now_ and, impossibly, madly, _mine_ ; it made no sense at all, but the senselessness was intoxicating, rich and full-bodied and deliriously, _fiercely_ good, a snake discarding a too-constricting skin. It sloughed from him and he gloried in it, shamelessness racing through his marrow like a drug, fear and modesty forgotten as his eyes fell to Seri’s sharp lips and wondered: what would it feel like, to be kissed by a mouth full of swords—?

As if in answer, Seri’s lips parted. “Command,” he repeated, low, smoke and wine and was this what it looked like, felt like, when someone hungered for you and you felt starved for them in answer?

A well-brought up young man would never dream of saying what Simon did next, but beneath Seri’s eyes such a concern did not even occur to him; he drew the command from his lips like a blade from a sheath. _“Kiss me.”_

  _Command, and chaos will answer_ —

And Seri did, instantly, completely, falling against Simon’s mouth like a star. His free hand slid into Simon’s hair, nails tracing lightning across his skull as he pulled Simon’s palm against his chest, holding it there, and Simon burned and burned; Seri’s tongue traced his lips and Simon dissolved into ash, came together in a swan-cloak of crimson and gold as his tongue slid into Simon’s mouth, stroking, hot silk and opium, phoenix wings bursting from his shoulders like fireworks at the brush of those _teeth_ —

It was a pyre of a kiss and Simon roared with it, roared like a bonfire, his free hand fisted in Seri’s shirt and dragged him in closer, fierce and wanting and alight and _mine_ —

The strange creature laughed, low and delighted against Simon’s lips—but he pulled himself free nonetheless. “Phoenix-chick,” he said again, grinning, his mouth an armoury of knives, “I think you’ll burn just fine, don’t you?”

Simon licked swollen lips, his heartbeat crashing like ocean waves. Before he could answer, Seri brushed another kiss over his mouth, a quick, teasing thing that hooked gold around Simon’s breastbone and tugged as he drew away.

“Come,” Seri said, his eyes glittering, shining, laughing, “come, _run with me,”_ and he still had Simon’s hand but Simon did not pull it free, when Seri turned and ran Simon ran with him, something in him crowing, something in him singing, he spread his arms and laughed and respectable young men did nothing like this but he was nothing like that, he ran and the garden blurred into chalk-box smudges around them, a storm of colour spinning like a top—

And when Seri led him to an ancient elder tree, the colours coalescing into a pit of blue-goldstone blackness framed by its roots, a star-scattered midnight plunging right through the world, Simon pulled off his remaining glove, threw it away, and took flight. 

* * *

 

[1] Pronounced ‘misstree’ or ‘mystery’.

[2] Pronounced ‘misser’.

[3] Pronounced ‘mix-duhr’ and meaning ‘second husband’.

[4] Pronounced ‘mix-uh’, meaning ‘first husband’.

[5] Pronounced ‘par’, meaning one of your mother’s husbands, but not your biological sire.

[6] Violets have been considered a lesbian symbol in many time periods. This is thought to date back to a poem of the poet Sappho’s, where she refers to giving her (female) lover a garland of violets.

[7] Pronounced ‘mix-twa’, meaning ‘third husband’.


End file.
